Meditations for Akane
by LlamaMathilde
Summary: Akane tries to work through her anger issues.


---Meditations for Akane---

Ranma, you jer-

Akane stopped, squeezing the pencil so hard she thought it might break.

"Incident:," she wrote. "Ranma walked in on me changing, and then said my dumb flat chest wasn't worth looking at. Actions: I punched him into the ceiling. Anger: 6. Aggression:"

"He totally deserved it!" Akane shouted angrily. "I wasn't any more aggressive than he deserved."

She looked at the chart in the library book in front of her, on which some helpful book-defacing soul had pencilled in his definitions.

0 - no aggression, no reaction

1 - mild sign of annoyance (scowl)

2 - moderate sign of annoyance

...

10 - major bodily harm

Akane sighed. "It's not like it really hurts him when I punch him into the ceiling like that." She looked at her checklist of Ways I Minimize the Consequences of My Anger. 'Telling myself that the other person doesn't really feel hurt, or that he or she understand that I don't really mean it' was at the top.

Akane sighed again. "Aggression: 10," she wrote.

Akane looked at a third list, the one she found most disturbing: 'Ways that Mismanaged Anger Damages My Relationships.' In a fit of honesty, she had put a big X next to 'relationship with a spouse or significant other.'

Ranma wasn't her spouse, not yet, but if Akane was truthful with herself, he was the most significant person in her life. She knew with certainty that she was literally willing to die for Ranma; she had gotten sucked into a tornado to try to rescue a chart to cure the ultimate moxibustion of weakness for him. She had stood on the tap at Jusenkyo, a willing target for arrows, razor feathers, or, as it turned out, the dessicating heat of the tap itself, and turned it off to stop Saffron's egg from devouring Ranma. She had flown into the heart of Saffron's heat and destruction to give Ranma line of sight for his one, final blow. She knew she loved Ranma.

Akane also knew that Ranma loved her. She had heard him say so, in nearly those words, as he had held her and thought that she was dead. He had rescued her many times over, fought for her, been...kind to her.

Akane stilled the pencil in mid-twirl. If she got onto that track, she'd never finish this exercise. She tried to think of something annoying and succeeded instantly, remembering how Ranma had chased after Shampoo as soon as Shampoo, under the influence of the upside-down mood pin, had stopped chasing after Ranma.

The pencil snapped in half under the pressure of Akane's fingers. That would be her next entry. She picked up the pencil stub to continue.

"Thoughts: How could he be so mean? Why does he always have to insult me and say I'm ugly? Why does he have to flaunt that his chest is bigger in his girl form? If he's going to break into my changing room, why can't he at least be nice about it?"

Akane paused. What had she just written? It wasn't like she'd wanted him in the changing room! She moved to erase the line but stopped. Every thought was important, the book had said.

"Rational challenges:," she wrote. "Mind-reading. Maybe he wasn't trying to be mean." Yeah, right, she thought. But then she wondered. Hadn't Ranma apologized? 'I'm sorry if you're upset,' he had said later, coming up to her room. And then, 'did I say something I shouldn't have?' And then Akane had drop-kicked him, the jerk, for being impossibly dense. Akane blushed. Maybe she shouldn't have done that.

Akane pondered the next one. Maybe the use of 'always' was too much. "Overgeneralization. He doesn't always insult me or say I'm ugly." She racked her brains for an example. Yes, Ranma had once said she was cute...no, twice! The first time, he had said she was cute when she smiled. The second time, Akane had thought he was lying in order to win the combat-enhancing battle-dogi off of her. She hadn't believed him, and had challenged him to a duel.

Akane massaged her temples with one hand. This exercise was almost as tiring as a workout.

"Magnification. Maybe I'm overreacting. Maybe Ranma's just telling the truth. His girl-chest is bigger than mine. Maybe he's so dense that he doesn't realize it hurts me when he says that." That squared with the last sentence she had written. Maybe Ranma just didn't know. Akane hovered over the word 'dense' with her pencil, then crossed it out.

Now for the last one. Akane thought. "Should/must," she wrote. "If Ranma's going to break into my changing room, he doesn't have to be nice about it." That didn't make any sense. She threw down the pencil in despair. Then she picked it up again. "Magnification," she wrote. "Ranma said it was an accident anyway. He didn't know it was my changing room, and he looked pretty embarrassed."

Akane reread what she had written. This exercise was making her feel better after all. She thought for a moment, then stuck her head out the window. "Ranma?" she called softly. "Are you still up there?"

Ranma leaned down from the roof, a pencil stuck behind his ear. "Yeah. How's it going?"

"Okay. How about you?"

"It's okay. A lot of writing, though. Akane?"

"Yes?"

"I've got a letter for you, when you're done."

"Huh?"

"The book says that writing a letter might help if I have trouble expressing my...um...feelings."

"What? Yours isn't about anger management?"

"No, mine's about communication. It's funny, who would've thought Kasumi'd check these out for us." Ranma grinned. "Hah. Yours is about anger management? Yeah, you really need it, don't you, a mach-" he stopped short at the exact same time as Akane made an effort to unclench her fist. "I mean, that's good."

"Yeah, it is."

Akane leaned back through her window.

"Incident: Ranma teased me about needing an anger management book. Actions: I almost hit him. Anger: 4. Aggression..."

Akane smiled. "2."

---end---

A/N: The exercise Akane is doing is based on an exercise in Anger: Taming the Beast, by Reneau Peurifoy. I think Akane needs anger management help, or at least she would if it were real life.

Please feel free to comment.


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